Police, fire unions urge limits on GPS in emergency vehicles

Saturday

Mar 30, 2013 at 12:01 AMMar 30, 2013 at 10:32 AM

Newly installed GPS tracking devices in Columbus emergency vehicles are raising concerns with the city's public-safety unions. Fire officials are investigating how fast two fire battalion chiefs were driving in city-issued SUVs, while police-union representatives want to know how public the tracking data will be, especially for take-home and undercover vehicles.

Fire officials are investigating how fast two fire battalion chiefs were driving in city-issued SUVs, while police-union representatives want to know how public the tracking data will be, especially for take-home and undercover vehicles.

"They put the cart before the horse. They put something in place before they had a policy on it," said Officer Jason Pappas, the president of Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. 9.

The city's Department of Public Safety is aware of the unions' concerns, spokeswoman Amanda Ford said. "We are working with police and fire both on a policy." The department has said that undercover police and fire cars will not be tracked.

The city plans to install GPS tracking units in 2,000 of its vehicles by the end of the year. That is less than half of the total fleet and includes other departments besides police and fire. The units will cost about $1.5 million, plus an annual fee to monitor and update software.

Columbus hopes to save on fuel by monitoring if a vehicle idles too long, goes off its route or is speeding. Mayor Michael B. Coleman said he also wants to eliminate any abuse, such as employees' using city vehicles for personal errands. Coleman and the city's fleet manager, Kelly Reagan, said the units will help provide an answer to a Dispatch investigation late last year that found that about 450 employees logged 5.6 million miles in vehicles they use to commute to and from work. Officials said at the time that they could not account for all those miles.

The city is contracting with AssetWorks Inc., a fleet-management company based in Wayne, Pa., to implement the tracking system. It will communicate with a Web-based program that will monitor the city's marked vehicles.

The GPS units have been in 78 police and 181 fire vehicles for about a month, and there already is an internal investigation of at least two fire battalion chiefs who were traveling in excess of100 mph in city-issued SUVs.

Fire Chief Greg Paxton said his office is investigating to see if those vehicles were heading to emergencies. He said there are no allegations of wrongdoing at this time.

Fire Division policy allows firefighters to exceed the speed limit if they are responding to emergencies and if road and traffic conditions are "favorable."

Jack Reall, the president of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 67, said the city cannot impose any discipline that is not already in the firefighters' contract.

"It must be bargained first," he said, referring to the process by which contracts are negotiated.

Firefighters and Reall also are upset that tracking devices were installed without warning, with no policy in place and without an administrator to oversee what data are reported.

Battalion Chief Patrick Ferguson said division members thought the Web program would be able to tell when vehicles were heading to an emergency scene and would not flag them.

If that's not the case, he said, each incident will have to be reviewed to determine whether there was an emergency.

"Basically, the issue boils down to how fast does the public want us to respond?" Ferguson said. "If you're having a heart attack or some emergency, do you want us to get there by going the speed limit or going as fast as we reasonably can?"

Police union President Pappas said he wants to know whether the information will be subject to Ohio's open-records laws. For example, will K9 officers who take home their cars so they can transport their dogs have their home addresses made public through the data?

And in cases of domestic violence, officers often will take the victim to a secure shelter. Could an abuser request the data of that cruiser to find out where the shelter is?

"This isn't necessarily about the GPS unit in and of itself," Pappas said. "It's about how the data will be used and protecting our officers and protecting the public at large."

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